Our rebellion was to seek out the orthodoxy...

Blogged by James Preece on 21st January 2014

Ben Cornish is a juggler from Exeter, which happens to be where I studied for my degree - though that has nothing to do with this blog post. I've never met Ben Cornish and we have never exchanged either emails or carrier pigeons. He is, in the great tradition of magic tricks, a total stranger to me.

Everything you are about to see took place in front of a live studio audience. There are no camera tricks. The hand is quicker than the eye. Don't worry I'm not going to saw him in half and yes, I made up the bit about the studio audience.

Anyways.. this evening I was reading a blog post Ben Cornish wrote about his time as a theatre student...

My dance training was the teaching of someone who had good technique herself but did not impose it on her students…our training was much concerned with ‘image work’ and rolling around on the floor a lot ,searching for……who knows what. ‘The floor is your friend’ was my dance teachers mantra in our first year…I didn’t find it to be the case and had the bruises to prove it! It was a great irony that by the time we reached the 3rd and 4th years , despite being a highly politicised group of students with all sorts of anarchic ideas and principles we were begging to be taught to proper ballet technique ….our rebellion was to seek out the orthodoxy that had been rejected by the dancers of 2 or 3 generations before us !

As you can see, the card Ben selected from the deck is the very one I've been banging on about for years. Amazing.

Did you know there are loads of twenty-something Catholics in this country with a similar story about their religious upbringing.. "we were young, we were rebellious, so we said enough with your rubbish, give us the truth!"

What's interesting is how the story seems to be repeated across all areas of human endeavor. When I learned to draw, when I learned woodwork, when I learned Latin... and now I hear it from a juggling theater student.

The story always seems to be the same.

It begins with some time time honored, long standing, traditional, way of doing things that was hard work but lead to genuine beauty, truth and goodness. Ah yes, it may have had it's faults and could have done with some development or evolution but it had the right goal.

Then there was the big revolution and it wasn't a revolution in method it was a revolution in intention. Everywhere people said "let's stop intending to do good and let's say, from now on, that everything is good (except orthodoxy)". Goodness was no longer the goal.

You can do that for a while because if you grew up learning your catechism or ballet or realistic drawing or whatever then even as you boldly announce that your classical training is worthless you carry on using the skills you have without even realising it.

The problem comes when the training which was abandoned as worthless is denied to successive generations - they are less able to wing it and eventually you end up with art teachers who can't draw and Ballet teachers who can't do ballet if you ask them about it they explain that you are terribly old fashioned and everybody knows that drawing is about far more than just making pictures that look like things and by the way would you leave now please?

Gradually we are beginning to reach a generation who go to college to learn art or dance or woodwork or whatever and find themselves doing papier mache models (abstract ones of course) and rolling around on the floor.

Some of them say to themselves "what is this rubbish?" and their rebellion ends up becoming a quest for orthodoxy.

As I said - the interesting thing is how the story seems to be repeated across all areas of human endeavor. Drawing, woodwork, latin, ballett.. No area of life seems untouched - even shaving.. When the fossil record tells you that all the animals and plants died out at the same time.. you know something big happened. We are talking about spiritual devestation of seismic proportions.

I consider it a great sign of hope then, to find so many people in so many area of life in open rebellion against it. All over the place, from seminaries to dance studios, people can be found saying "no" to the powers and principalities of this world.

Many of those people are not Catholics and many would call themselves atheists yet they share a common goal of beauty, truth and goodness - that put's them a lot closer to God than some Catholics!

Reader Comments

Good piece! This also explains why the liturgical crisis is so problematic: we have (for example) abandoned as a goal of liturgy offering the very best we can (eg musically, aesthetically) to God, and I fear we are living off our spiritual inheritance which may soon run out.

Incidentally, it also reflects my journey to orthodoxy in a school where novelty, discussion and opinions were valued rather than doctrine and truth.

shieldsheafson said...

Once, there were three universal forms of learning that gave us perspective: Classical Education; to remind us that in reason and logic there is a difference between true and false; Scientific Education; To show us which is which; and Religious Education; To teach us why the distinction matters.

Chrysostom said...

Thank you for this interesting article - it is good to see you back. Anyone reading the documents of the Second Vatican Council can see that there was no desire or intention to make any other than the most trivial changes. So how come we had the biggest changes in the history of the church? Remember what Our Blessed Lord called the devil: not the Father of adultery; not the father of theft; not the father of racism; Our Blessed Lord called the devil THE FATHER OF LIES. Read the documents of the Second Vatican Council ( that Latin must be preserved, etc) and then think of what has actually happened.

DJB said...

„In the trinitarian dogma, God is one, good, true and beautiful because he is essentially Love, and Love supposes the one, the other and their unity. [...] All true solutions offered by the Christian faith hold, therefore, to these two mysteries [Trinity and Incarnation], categorically refused by a human reason that makes itself that absolute. It is because of this that the true battle between religions begins only after the coming of Christ.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, My Work. In Retrospect, Ignatius Press)

To the Blessed Virgin Prayer for England

O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry" and upon us all who greatly hope and
trust in thee.

By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more.

Plead for us thy children, whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the cross.

O sorrowful Mother! intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy
Son.

Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home.

Amen.

Couple's Prayer

O God, our heavenly Father, protect and bless us. Deepen and strengthen our love for each other day by day.

Grant that by thy mercy, neither of us may ever say one unkind word to the other. Forgive and correct our faults, and make us constantly to forgive one
another should one of us unconsciously hurt the other.

Make us and keep us sound and well in body, alert in mind, tender in heart, and devout in spirit. O Lord, grant us each to rise to the other's best. Then, we
pray thee, add to our common life such virtues as only thou canst give.

And so, O Father, consecrate our life and love completely to thy worship, and to the service of all about us, especially those whom thou hast appointed us to
serve, that we may always stand before thee in happiness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.